


Getting It Right

by spinninginfinity



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 08:17:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinninginfinity/pseuds/spinninginfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you're running the free world, Valentine's Day can be tricky to pull off.</p>
<p>
  <i>The first Valentine’s Day she and Josh are together, Donna cooks dinner.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting It Right

The first Valentine’s Day she and Josh are together, Donna cooks dinner. She goes back and forth on wine choices before admitting to herself that neither one of them knows anything about wine. She tries on everything in her underwear drawer and then buys something new, worries that it’s too over the top and goes back to an old favorite. She feels self-conscious as she pores through compilation CDs of soft jazz.

An important factor in this first Valentine’s Day is that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs starts kicking around the idea of deploying hundreds more troops into Kazakhstan, and Josh doesn’t make it home until gone 1am.

She’s still awake. He crawls into bed and takes her in his arms and makes her feel like the sexiest woman in the world in just the oversized cotton t-shirt she likes sleeping in; she comes twice with his mouth between her legs, murmured apologies and I-love-yous warm against her inner thighs. 

‘I’m so sorry,’ he says again when he comes back up to lie next to her.

She shakes her head. ‘It’s really okay.’

‘It’s not. You went to a lot of effort. I should have been here.’

‘You have a job to do.’ She draws his hand up and presses a kiss to his palm. ‘Sometimes you’re going to miss stuff like Valentine’s Day. I understand.’

‘Our first Valentine’s Day, though,’ he sighs. ‘I’ll make it up to you.’

She smiles and reaches down to cup him through his boxers, shifting her hips closer to his and then encouraging him to lie over her. ‘I promise you, you already have,’ she says.

***

Their second Valentine’s Day, Josh books a table at Donna’s favorite restaurant, and they make it halfway through their mains before both their pagers go off.

‘How can there be an impending PR crisis on _Valentine’s Day_?’ Josh demands when they arrive back at the White House.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lou says. ‘This excuse for Hallmark to make money is immune to PR crises how, exactly?’

‘I was having duck,’ he mutters.

‘Starter?’ Lou asks, and when he shakes his head she says, ‘Then stop complaining; you got further than I did.’ She claps her hands together. ‘Let’s get to work, people!’

The next evening Josh and Donna heat up the food the waiter boxed up for them, and Josh complains that he thought _he_ was meant to be in charge and tries to pester Donna into telling him who Lou’s seeing.

‘She doesn’t want to tell people yet,’ she says, stealing some of his duck.

‘But you know?’

She grins. ‘I know everything.’

‘Tell me,’ he wheedles.

‘Nope.’

‘Donna!’

She kisses him, and he forgets about Lou’s mystery man.

‘Happy February 15th,’ he says sleepily, later. He spoons up behind her, arm folded over her body, and presses a kiss to her shoulder.

‘Mm.’ She rests her hand over his. ‘We’ll get it right next year.’

***

They don’t get it right the following year; in fact, they’re not even in the same state.

‘I’m sorry,’ Donna says when he calls her.

‘Donna, you don’t control the weather.’

‘I know.’ She looks miserably around her hotel room, at her fully packed bags on the floor. ‘It’s not fair though. I knew it was too good to be true when I realized Valentine’s was on a Sunday this year.’

‘We’ll do something next Sunday.’

She flops backward onto her bed. He’s right, she knows, and it makes no difference really. But still, don’t they deserve just one complication-free Valentine’s Day? And also, ‘I had very thorough plans for later.’

‘“Thorough”?’ he repeats, the word coming out higher than usual. He clears his throat. ‘Thorough in what sense?’

She smiles.

The day’s not a total wash, in the end. He’s mercifully already at home and with nothing more scheduled for the First Lady’s trip, Donna’s free to draw her curtains, settle against the pillows and tell him the exact nature of her plans for him. She undoes her fly and slides a hand under the waistband of her underwear as she listens to the effect she’s having. It’s a pretty satisfying one.

‘Tomorrow,’ she promises breathlessly, when he’s shouted his release. She pinches her clit and squeezes her thighs together; he urges her to come and she does, _oh, oh, oh, Josh, yes_ into the phone and no, she thinks, not a total wash at all.

***

It’s easier the following year, Donna reasons to herself, because they both know they can’t do Valentine’s Day well in advance, and also because they have a significantly more important day to look forward to.

Josh, apparently, doesn’t see it that way.

‘You know what?’ he says, bursting into her office with a bag of takeout in one hand and his backpack in the other, a bouquet of roses tucked under his arm. ‘No. This is our last ever Valentine’s Day as boyfriend and girlfriend and damned if we’re not going to get it right for once.’ He puts the takeout on the desk and the backpack on the chair in front of it, and thrusts the roses somewhat aggressively at her.

‘Good afternoon to you too,’ she says mildly, taking them.

‘I got takeout from that deli you like, and—’ he rifles through the backpack, taking out items as he names them, ‘—candles, which I figure we can use if we close the curtains, tablecloth, champagne flutes, fresh orange juice since we’re not allowed to drink champagne during office hours, and mood music.’ He pulls out his iPod and small speakers she recognizes as Bram’s. ‘I’ve cleared your schedule for the next hour,’ he says. ‘Mine was a little more difficult but I’m pretty sure everyone’s been suitably scared into only calling me if it’s absolutely necessary.’ He looks at the array of things on her desk. ‘Okay, so we’re not quite getting it right.’

She sets her roses down, stands and makes her way around to him, curling her hand around his tie and pulling him toward her for a kiss. 

‘You went to all this trouble just to make sure we could spend an hour together?’ she asks. ‘And got me roses, which, by the way, are beautiful, thank you?’

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘But like I say, I could still get called away—’

She presses her mouth against his again, silencing him.

‘We’re getting it exactly right,’ she whispers against his lips. ‘Happy Valentine’s Day.’

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feedback is welcome and appreciated!


End file.
